Developing New Treatments for Childhood Anxiety and Ocd: Can Cognitive Control Help Kids Grow Out of Illness?
Tuesday, June 13, 2023, 2:00 pm EDT
Dr. Fitzgerald’s clinical and research expertise is in pediatric obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and anxiety disorders. She has studied atypical development of neural circuitry devoted to "task control" -- an executive control mechanism that enables an individual to suppress irrelevant automatic behaviors such as the obsessive behaviors seen in OCD. She will discuss her research to elucidate developmentally sensitive mechanisms of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) that might make it possible to target task control differently for patients of different ages. Dr. Fitzgerald is also studying a play-based cognitive training strategy designed to reduce early childhood anxiety by increasing brain capacity for cognitive control.
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Ruane Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
Columbia University/New York State Psychiatric Institute
2013, 2007 Young Investigator Grant
Kate D. Fitzgerald, M.D. is the Ruane Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons and New York State Psychiatric Institute (NYSPI). At Columbia University/NYSPI, she serves as Director of Research on the Children’s Day Unit, and Director of Pediatric Clinical Studies in the Center for OCD and Related Disorders. She also co-leads NIMH -funded T32 and R25 training grants to cultivate the next generation of child and adolescent psychiatry researchers. Dr. Fitzgerald’s clinical and research expertise is in pediatric obsessive compulsive and anxiety disorders. Her research has implicated alterations of neural substrate for task control in affected children, adolescents and adults. Currently, she is conducting research to elucidate developmentally sensitive mechanisms of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for patients at different ages. Dr. Fitzgerald is also studying play-based cognitive training strategy designed to reduce early childhood anxiety by increasing brain capacity for cognitive control. She has published extensively on these topics in general and child psychiatric journals.
Jeffrey Borenstein, M.D., serves as the President & CEO of the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation, the largest private funder of mental health research grants. Dr. Borenstein developed the Emmy-nominated public television program “Healthy Minds,” and serves as host and executive producer of the series. The program, broadcast nationwide, is available online, and focuses on topics in psychiatry in order to educate the public, reduce stigma and offer a message of hope. Dr. Borenstein served as Editor-in-Chief of Psychiatric News, the newspaper of the American Psychiatric Association from 2012 - 2023.
Dr. Borenstein is a Fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine and serves as the Chair of the Section of Psychiatry at the Academy. He also has served as the President of the New York State Psychiatric Association. Dr. Borenstein earned his undergraduate degree at Harvard and his medical degree at New York University.
